Cinema paradiso

A pair of hot-shot Hollywood designers have turned their talents to restoring houses, including an Umbrian palazzo

Amarriage that lasts among film people is a rarity," says Mayes Rubeo. "When their marriages are in trouble, they come to Palazzo Centamori for inspiration."

Visit and you can see why. Her four-storey palazzo perches high in the Umbrian hilltop town of Trevi, an hour's drive from Perugia: it is an architectural and historical mishmash so romantic, you couldn't help but leave everyday problems behind.

The entrance is a green medieval door, off Via dei Setaioli (the "street of the silk-makers"), which opens into a cool internal courtyard set with palms, Buddhist statues and fountains. It looks like a glamor-ous Hollywood film set, which is scarcely surprising given that Mayes and her husband, Bruno, have worked on some of the top films of the past three decades.

The couple's CVs read like a history of modern cinema. Bruno, who moved to America in 1968 from Rome, has been the art